Snapshot I:

Produce vendors, flowers and
The smell of burning pastries
A man trips, spilling cherries
Peaches, plums and other tasties
Country music drifting softly
Above the humming of the crowd
A woman strolls her poodle
Past the sign "No dogs allowed"
A girl skips for ice cream
With her mother coming slowly
Two classmates turn their faces
Pretending they don't know me
I sigh, take up my sketchbook
And begin to sketch a face
As the mouth curves, start to notice
It's the friend I can't replace

Fairytale

SOMETIMES THERE'S A FAIRYTALE
BUT STERN COLD HARD GREY
REALITY CRASHING TO THE FLOOR
BUT YOU KNOW WHAT?
YOU CAN'T JUST SAY I HAVE NO HOPE
NO DREAMS, WISHES, POSSIBILITIES
INKLINGS OF CHANCE
I DON'T CARE HOW UNLIKELY.
THAT DREAM IS MINE
AND YOU CAN NEVER TAKE IT
BUT YOU CAN BUILD YOUR OWN
AND NEVER LET IT GO
NOT FOR ANYONE

I THOUGHT IT WAS A FAIRYTALE
A QUILT OF ALL THOSE LITTLE THINGS
TOO BEAUTIFUL TO BE TRUE
THREADS UNRAVEL, PIECES FALL OFF
BUT I WON'T LET YOU TEAR WHAT'S LEFT

SHATTER-SHARD-SPIRALING TOWARDS

AN UNKNOWN PLACE

WHERE DO DREAMS GO WHEN THEY DIE?
OUT THE WINDOW? INTO THE VOID?
BUT MY DREAM WON'T GO THERE
NOT WITHOUT DRAGGING ME ALONG
AND IF WE GO DOWN
IT'LL BE SOMEONE
TOUGHER, MEANER, GREENER
HARSHER, HARDER, SMARTER
WHO PUSHES THE PILE OF
HOPES DREAMS WISHES
AND UNFINISHED PROJECTS
ONTO IT'S FACE
IT WON'T BE YOU
DEAL WITH IT

AND BEFORE YOU TRY TO PUSH ME OVER
DOWN INTO THE GROUND
(BUT IF YOU DO, I'LL STAND)
THINK ABOUT YOUR OWN FAIRYTALE
IS IT THERE WHERE YOU LEFT IT
COVERED IN DUST, TEARS
MEMORIES, FRAYED AT THE EDGES
IS IT FALLING APART?
BECAUSE I'LL HELP YOU FIX IT
A BOTTLE OF GLUE, A NEEDLE,
A SPOOL OF THREAD, A HAND
ANYTHING BROKEN CAN BE MENDED
SEWN TOGETHER AGAIN
OF COURSE YOU DON'T TRUST ME
YOU LIVE IN YOUR OWN LITTLE WORLD OF LIES

YOU THOUGHT IT WAS A FAIRYTALE
A WISH COME TRUE FOR YOU TO BE
ON TOP OF EVERYONE ELSE
YOUR BUBBLE OF LIES
'CAUSE YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE
WHO STAYED BEHIND
LEFT TO LEAD, YOU SAID
BUT POWER HAS A PRICE
AND NOTHING WILL BE FREE FROM
BLOOD, SWEAT, TOIL
TRUTH THAT WE CAN'T FACE
SOME DAY WE HAVE TO

BECAUSE LIFE IS NOT A FAIRYTALE
AND HAPPY EVER AFTER
AND MAGIC WON'T MAKE IT ALRIGHT
THE WORLD OF LIES
THAT YOU TELL YOURSELF
AND MAYBE IT LIFTS YOU OFF THE GROUND
BUT MAYBE IT GIVES YOU FARTHER TO FALL
AND HIT THE GROUND ROLLING
THERE WILL BE STONES AND STICKS
BRIARS AND BRANCHES
THE STREAM CAN BREAK YOUR FALL
BUT SCARS ARE HEROES
AND SOAKED-WET, SHAME
SO YOU CAN MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES AGAIN

YOU'RE STILL STUCK IN YOUR FAIRYTALE
BUT AM I REALLY ANY BETTER?
I WON'T LET GO OF MY PARADISE
AND I SUPPOSE I'LL LEAVE YOU TO YOURS.
TEAR, PLUCK OUT, PUMMEL
IS THAT WHAT WE ALL DO?
I DIDN'T SEE MYSELF AS TRYING TO LIE
BUT DOES THAT MAKE YOU ANY WORSE?
CLINGING TO WHAT WE HAVE LEFT
WHEN THE WORLD SHATTERS US
MAYBE ALL IT IS IS A FALSEHOOD
WE TELL OURSELVES EVERY DAY
WE TRY TO RISE ABOVE OUR ROOTS
ONLY SO MUCH ROOM TO GROW
YOU DID YOUR BEST TO TEAR ME DOWN
BUT WITH YOUR WORLD
I DON'T BELIEVE IN WHAT YOU SEE
BUT AM I TRYING TO SHATTER
STAB, PUMMEL, BURST IT?
OR ARE YOU TRYING TO HELP?
LIKE I THOUGHT I WAS
BUT YOU KNOW WHAT?

I'LL LEAVE YOU TO YOUR FAIRYTALE
AND YOU LET MINE ALONE
I'LL STITCH THE PIECES TOGETHER
WHEN THEY MIGHT SHATTER
I'LL KEEP DREAMING WHEN IT'S GONE
BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT FAIRYTALES DO
THEY DISSAPPEAR INTO THE NIGHT
LEAVE YOU HANGING ON A THREAD
STOP A FEW LINES BEFORE THE END

My Collab Idea (for after MC is over, presumably)

Earth is polluted, almost to the point of an apocalypse, so Professor So-and-so decides to try an experiment to move the pollution to an empty dimension. The most powerful shunter in centuries. s/he arranges a demonstration to hopefully save the planet, but it goes awry (possibly through sabotage?), sending random audience members (aka the contributors) traveling from dimension to dimension, and no one knows how to stop it (until the collab is over)

Then, everyone could take turns coming up with a dimension. Like, anything. One person would set the stage and specify anything important they wanted to have in their dimension and then anyone else who wanted to try would have a turn and then we'd all be automatically shunted to another dimension. If the characters split up, they wouldn't necessarily appear in the same place in the next dimension, so different people can write at once (after the first person has invented the dimension) and if anyone was touching someone when everyone was shunted again, they'd join. And anyone who dies dies.

There can be anything in a dimension, alternate endings with SP characters, (Like Tanith with no remnant! :D or Sanguine being from somewhere other than Texas. That'd be weird, but the whole point of this would be a fun experiment-y thing, so weird is okay)

And that's my idea as it currently exists--subject to changes depending on what people want to do.

And if no one wants to do this, I might write it myself, because it sounds like fun, to me anyway. :-)

A Poem for You

This is for you
You who have cried
At hurt deep inside
You who have tried to hold on
When the world starts to crush you underfoot

This is for you
You don't think you're strong
Don't think you belong
You, who are wrong when you say:
That no one cares and wants to help you

This is for you
Who've been pushed and fell

You've all been through hell
And the rest of us can tell it ain't over yet

But I'll try my best to end it, and not the way you're thinking

Please don't give up
Whenever life starts
To tear at your heart
And you might fall apart, I won't let you
Because they're all idiots who try to make you miserable

It's not you, it's them
Because, believe me
They just can't see
That you are and will be amazing
And I know that you don't accept that, but please

Please don't give up

Six Feet Under Screams (Also known as the story in the basement)

Behind the basement door: 

"So," Dean began. "You've got friends. Don't worry, though. I'm capable of breaking both your legs without help." Behind him, something in the shadows moved, something eerily familiar.

Fabi gasped in shock as she remembered where she'd seen something similar. "There's a--"

Dean growled. "I'm not an idiot. There's no one there!"

He picked Fabi up as if she weighed nothing and threw her to the ground. She felt something crack, probably a rib, and hissed in the pain. The shadows moved again. 

"No! You can't--" Fabi's cry was cut off as Dean hit her across the face, worsening the already bad bruises from Glow's organ. Now her nose was bleeding, too. How dignified. 

Whatever, Fabi had never been a graceful fighter, always messing things up horribly. She blocked the next strike with her elbow, and tried to get back up again, but Dean forced her down again and it was as if it began raining punches. Fabi resisted as long as she could, but eventually lost her nerve and scooted backwards, into the shadows.

The first time she'd been possessed by a ghost/shadow/thing, it had taken her memories first. This wasn't like that at all, but the same chilling feeling was there, and the same shadows in her eyes.

Lilac Solo had been not unlike herself, a young woman who'd gotten too close to the truth and had been taken down here to die. Dean had killed her. Now she spoke again, through Fabi, but with her own voice. 

"Dean Tristan."

"Y-your dead!" The transformation was almost immediate. The tough burly man who loved nothing more than tormenting people was gone, replaced by a scared fool who'd just realized that his actions had consequences and was trying to run away from them. 

Lilac and Fabi had a shared goal in that moment, and they sealed the door as one, feeding off each others' energy. Shadows tore off the doorknob, and the metal door fused to the doorframe. They let him pummel at it so that it bent horribly, Dean screeching in a voice higher than they thought possible, but before he had even a hope of breaking through, Fabi-Lilac influenced the metal in the door and he stuck. There was a muffled gasp as the door covered his face, and then the screaming stopped.

Fabi felt the wounds on her head, torso and just about everywhere start to heal, but at the same time, she was losing control. She and Lilac had achieved some sort of unison, both angry, both wanting revenge, but when Fabi's anger faded, Lilac's did not, and the latter was stronger. 

The way Fabi understood it, the shadow things were leftover hatred and anger, belonging to the dead. Lilac had to have been a good person, right? So many of her memories were similar to Fabi's own, memories of being forgotten, left out, left behind. Like here. 

Fabi knew better, she thought. Adra and Saph had battles of their own, there was no reason for them to come after her. At the same time, though, another tiny part of Fabi was insisting they'd forgotten, and Lilac was feeding that thought with memories of her own. The poor woman hadn't had many good friends. Fabi would have been sorry for her, except that she was doing the wrong thing with her anger.

"Adra, Fabi, are you alright?" Saph called from outside. 

"No, I'm dead." Lilac used Fabi's voice, but Fabi hoped Saph hadn't heard. Lilac was starting to get angry now, and she was sending shadows spilling out of Fabi's eyes at an insane speed. The shadows on the doorknob twisted off, and it was all Fabi could do to keep her discipline out of Lilac's reach. 

Giving up on that method out, for now, Lilac shadow-walked Fabi upwards and out into the light.

The Infamous Spider Story (originally by my sister)

So, I'm going to say 'I' a lot, and I'm retelling what she said, well mostly, and inserting little explain-y bits, like the fact that we have a hose box. That's important. Because, like, our garden hose rolls up, on this stick thing that rotates inside the box, like a paper towel dispenser or something. 

But anyway, yes. There is a hose-box, and that is where we keep the hose, and a lot of times there are bugs in there. Last time I checked, there were two snails. In this case, though, there are spiders.

So...

I went to the hose box, lifted the lid and saw a big, scary black spider. I backed up really really fast and it jumped over me, like a ninja. (keep in mind, my sister is nearly six feet tall) I still needed to get the hose out, so I went back to the hose-box, only this time, there was a little yellow spider. It crawled toward me kinda slowly, and it was, like, wandering off and getting distracted a bit, but I still needed to get the hose out, so I put it on a leaf and moved it to the garden, because it wouldn't be too happy if I started moving the hose out from under it. 

So then I went back to the hose box, lifted the lid again, and there was a brown spider, and it was...medium. It was medium-sized, and then it walked toward me at a medium speed and I backed up a medium amount. It climbed mediumly out of the medium hose-box and walked off at a medium speed. 

So then I went back again, lifted the lid, and there was an invisible gray spider (see, that works because gray describes what it looks like, invisible describes what it doesn't look like). I kinda backed up 'cause I was scared, 'cause I couldn't see the thing, and eventually it, too, got out of the hose-box...I presume. 

So I went back again, and this time, when I lifted the lid there was an orange spider. It didn't have a size. See, it had forgotten its size long ago (because it never went to school), and when it was out swimming, its size was eaten by a shark. (Of course, the spider itself survived and was in the hose-box, just size-less, but anyway it has no size now, and that's the important part). Soooooo... 

Then I went back again, wondering how many more spiders could there be in this thing? And I lifted the lid and saw... A gold spider. It didn't climb out of the box or jump at me because it was made of metal and couldn't move or talk. So, yeah. 

So then I just gave up because it wasn't moving because I didn't want to touch it because a spider, even though it was a metal spider that couldn't move or talk. So I just went over and got in the car because we had to leave, anyway. Where we were going, I'm not entirely sure. It was never quite defined. 

So then I heard this little scrapey sound, and I looked in the backseat, and there were all the spiders, including the one that was made of metal and couldn't move or talk. The black one must have dragged it in or something.

So I asked them what they were doing there, and the black one replied (in ninja-speak, which consisted mostly of silence and sideways glances) that they were there because they felt like it.

And then the gold one said nothing, because it was made of metal and couldn't move or talk.

And then the yellow one said in a high-pitched squeaky voice "It's funnnnn!"

So then Mom came over, and she was freaked out by all the spiders in the car, so she said she we were walking.

Only it was just me walking, because Mom got a phone call or something, that was never quite defined, but she wasn't there, at any rate. 

So I was walking and the spiders were walking behind me, single file, in order of size. Only since the orange one didn't have a size, it was flying above us because it can totally do that.

The big black one came first, dragging along the gold spider (which was made of metal and couldn't move or talk), then came the medium brown one at a medium pace, then the yellow one. I couldn't see the invisible gray spider, so I didn't know where in the line it was, but I knew that it was in the line and that it was gray. And that worked, like totally. It worked.

Now that we've got that settled, let's see.

So where I had stopped, there were these two flagpoles, one with the America flag, one with the Washington flag. 

Down from one of the flagpoles, and it was never quite defined which flagpole, came this blue spider. And it was bigger than the big black ninja spider, but smaller than the yellow one. And it had more of a size than the orange one. And it could move faster than the ninja spider, but slower than the gold spider that was made of metal and couldn't move or talk. And...yes. It was also impossible, did I mention that? But there it was, and all that nonsense described it perfectly!

And down from the other flagpole came this hoard (it was never quite defined how many) of red spiders. And it was never quite defined what size they were or how fast they were moving or how they spoke or what language. So then we all decided to go to the pool and swim. Because it's fun, and the pool was near the flagpoles. And it was a private pool, open only to the residents of a neighborhood, or they can pay to have guests. So the lady at the entrance was trying to determine if the spiders counted as residents, and at least one of the red spiders (it was never quite defined how many were talking) said that it hadn't quite been defined where they lived. And she was perplexed by that, and said "Whatever, weirdos. You can go in. Do you know the code?" (There is a code to open the door) And they said it had never quite been defined whether or not they knew the code, but I knew the code, so I opened the door and we all went in, the red spiders taking a length of time that was never quite defined.

And that's kinda the end of the story. My little sis is awesome!

Nightmares

I originally meant this to be a dream blog for recording what goes on inside my head at night. For the most part, that hasn't really worked, but these came from nightmares...

She stands there on the shore as the tide comes in, waiting for it to envelop her in endless darkness. The cliff behind her is too steep, she can't climb it, so she stands, braces herself for each wave, like bladed water, sharp and strong to splash salt in her face. She gasps desperately for air, catching a pocket of precious oxygen and using it to scream. It echoes far, but no one hears her shriek in time. The slick rock behind her stands as solid as before, unyielding to her cries. She desperately scrabbles at it, as if she hadn't tried. She's been here hours, and her throat is dry from thirst, the ocean invitng her to drink deep and die, drown. She resists as long as she can, tries to tread water, but  her muscles are weary and the current never tires. It tosses her against the rocks and she can hear her bones crack, but not feel them. Everything is blurred, both sight and touch, like a distorted reflection, something unreal. So this is what it's like to die. She takes one last look upwards before going under, almost completely numb now. Maybe it's better that way. Above her on the cliff, a face stares down in horror. Someone she hadn't wanted to hurt. "I'm sorry," she tries to say, but opening her mouth is only a door for the salt water to come in. Black fuzzy spots fill her vision and she gives in.

*********

And I changed my mind. That's the only one I'm sharing.